Karl Van Buren

Name: Karl Van Buren Gender: Male Age: 18 Grade: 12 School: Southridge High School Hobbies and Interests: Has a fascination with people who survive catastrophies, stunts, berating random fanatics, the Sea, Medicine. Dislikes: Planes, Rivers, Crime and Punishment, Tall Trees, Fishing in small boats, Highways, Skeet Shooting, Birds, Lifting Weights, Violins, Guns, Transvestites.

Appearance: Karl has a bit of a girlish figure about him, however his facial appearance is still quite boyish, an odd combination which wouldn't fit with many people besides Karl. He has streaked brownish-blonde hair, which is usually at a fairly mum length. He has a typically Dutch complexion and facial structure, though he has particularly high cheekbones, which, like the rest of his appearance, and his life, seem to be like a jigsaw puzzle, fitting well together, but jumbled. Karl is particularly wiry, though not so much as to look partially anorexic. He has unusually dark blue eyes. Karl prefers to wear a plain-coloured T-shirt with slightly long, nondescript shorts. In the winter, he still dresses quite lightly, wearing fairly snug jeans. Choosing to dress this way is partially out of style, and partially out of paranoia that he may have to run very far away at a point in the future, something that he has done so many times before.

Biography: Karl Van Buren was born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, though he only lived there for two years. He never knew his father, and was raised by his mother and step-mother. His life has been riddled with chaos, from the moment he was born. His birth was the result of a failed contraception by his bisexual prostitute mother, a worker in De Wallen, the famous Red Light District of Amsterdam. She had wanted to get an abortion, but certain medical complications prevented that. So, she accepted the fact that she was now a mother. She was able to power through any medical or financial complications she had, and mid-way through her pregnancy, she met her future wife. The two were happy together, and Karl was born without complications. However, many more complications awaited Karl in his life.

It started at the age of two. Karl's mother and her girlfriend (They were married in 2001, as Same-Sex marriage was legalized in The Netherlands, and they held dual citizenship.) left for the West Coast of the United States, to find more work, and for a change of scenery. As they were getting off the plane, one of the engines mysteriously turned on, uncontrollably sucking in luggage, and most terrifyingly, two people. Sixteen people were injured, and the two sucked into the jet engines had to be gathered up in several strewn about pieces.

Three months later, a truck crashed through the Van Buren's home. No-one was harmed, except for the driver, who suffered a rare cerebral aneurysm and died some weeks afterward.

Karl had gone on a trip up to Canada a few years later, in British Colombia. There, extremely tall redwood trees grow. As they were toured about the area, one of the branches of the large trees snapped, unknown to another group of people, all of which were severely injured when it fell on top of them. On another trip a short while later, they had been fishing in a boat, when it began to sink quite fast. Karl nearly drowned as the boat went under, and has had a striking fear of water ever since. He has described it as the "Most terrifying thing you can possibly imagine."

On their way back to California, a highway collapsed, dropping several cars a very long way down. Again, people were killed. Karl's parents figured it was but a stroke of bad luck, and it had nothing to do with any of the previous events.

Karl had generally, very bad luck all throughout his life in Public School. His grades were average, nothing particularly special. In the eighth grade, Karl had taken an interest in reading more difficult books. Crime and Punishment was his favorite. However, as he took the bus to school, he was reading the earlier parts of the book, where the main character - Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov - had just murdered two people with an axe. At that exact moment, a fire axe; a tool used in buses to break windows in the event of a crash, somehow broke loose as the bus hit a pothole, and flew down the aisle, cutting apart the ear of one person, and embedding itself in the leg of the boy beside him, Gabriel Theobaldt.The two had a falling-out after that, as Karl had told Gabriel about his horrid luck, and Gabriel blamed him for his crippling knee injury. The two were bitter from then on afterwards. Karl had always gone over that in his head, even to this day. How had that happened at the exact time he had been reading about someone murdered with an axe? How was it that this sheer volume of incidents didn't happen to anyone else?

The accidents continued. He went skeet shooting, and the instructor shot a very endangered species of bird, and was fined heavily. The first time Karl attempted to use a bench press, and it broke before he had his hands on it, nearly choking him to death. One day, he walked outside to see that someone had set his first car on fire, for no apparent reason*. Towards the start of 11th grade, his house was again nearly ruined, this time by freak bolt of lightning, the result of a small dust storm that had moved from southeast of Highland Beach. A short while afterwards, Karl broke his ankle after a small bridge over a river had rotted away, and he fell through down to the stream below.

The last three of his dislikes arose in the very end of Grade 11. He had been watching Southridge's band play, when one of the Violinists had been playing a particularly extravagant note, and sharply poked a fellow band member in the eye, causing it to bleed severely. As he left the building, he noticed, strangely, a handgun lying on the ground behind it. Karl curiously picked it up with two fingers, delicately, only for the gun to discharge and shoot himself in the foot. This was one of two times that Karl's bad luck had hurt him personally.

Probably the highest on the weirdness scale, was when Karl and his parents had been walking back to their car after a day on the town of Highland Beach, when what looked like a transvestite jumped from one of the taller buildings and landed on the car, completely ruining the back end of it. The sheer amount of property damage the Van Buren's have had to endure meant that they have spent quite a bit of money on insurance and replacing what was lost. Karl Van Buren does live quite well, however. Not exactly rich, but not middle-class either.

Now, aside from the massive, intermittent amounts of weird, bad luck in Karl's life, he does get some down time, and he has had good luck on occasion. Living with two mothers, he does get his share of social punishment from the 'Popular Crowd', not to mention his own eccentricities being made fun of. As far as his own sexuality is concerned, it is fairly unknown to most people, though he's often considered to 'act gay.' He hasn't really been seen with anyone, though. Mostly, he doesn't want to get in a relationship because he's subconciously worried that something will happen to whoever he loves.

As a person, Karl is quite eccentric, having very strange quirks and interests. He has a strange fascination with Cryptids (Mythical Creatures) in addition to a general love of the Sea, despite the Leech Incident (Though that took place on a lake.) Karl wants to pursue medicine, like his Stepmother, and is also eager to teach, like his biological Mother. Logically, he loves the TV Series "House." He is very personable, though many don't hang around him, as the stories he tells of his bad luck seem far-fetched, and most people think that he's just out of his mind. That, and he's one of my more effeminate people in the school, and gets his share of punishment from the popular crowd due to that, and his other eccentricities. Karl rarely loses his temper, and is very accepting of people, though he harbors a dislike for Transvestites due to the fact that one committed suicide, landing on his mom's car; he believes that you are stuck with whatever gender you end up with, and one shouldn't change it. Coupled with the fact that he has grown to accept his extremely bad luck by now, he adapts to situations quite quickly. He isn't religious, simply because it didn't really appeal to him. Karl absoloutely hates arguments, and would rather go against what he believes, and in the end still find a way to get what he wants.

Oddly enough, though, his parents never speak of the accidents that tend to happen around Karl, nor do they ever want to talk about them. Karl just figures that they don't want to be talking about such depressing subjects, or that they actually know more about his 'curse' than he thinks.

Advantages: Will probably adapt and survive, like he always has, and probably won't be too affected by people dying around him. He will figure it's just another streak of bad luck, and if he wins or loses, it's over for him anyways. Karl runs quite often, and is seemingly paranoid about potentially dangerous objects around him, this may serve as an advantage, as he will always be vigilant.

Disadvantages: Karl is wiry, and isn't the most athletic guy around. Karl won't make alliances that quickly, due to his reputation of causing harm to everyone around him. Not to mention the aformented bad luck that has plauged him since he came to America. Karl also has an extreme dislike for firearms, after shooting his own foot.

Designated Number: Male Student No. 40

==

Designated Weapon: Butterfly Sword Conclusion: People're going to have to be very wary of Karl Van Buren solely because of his unlucky streak. This kid might be a contender to win it all because everyone who hangs out with him might die! Think about it, he could win without getting a single kill. If that happened, I might have to throw him back in, just like good old Sydney Morvran...

Game Evaluations
Kills: None

Killed by: Gabriel Theobaldt

Collected Weapons: Butterfly Sword (issued weapon)

Allies: Troy McCann

Enemies: Gabriel Theobaldt, God

Mid-Game Evaluation: Unsurprisingly, the kid with all the bad luck didn't last very long during season three. He woke up in the bathroom facility and encountered Troy McCann, who for some reason thought Karl was going to rape him in the showers. Karl put Troy's mind to rest, and the two stayed in the facility -- unaware that they'd been joined by Beth Vandelinder -- until Gabriel Theobaldt burst into the building and alerted them to both his and Beth's presence. Directly after, the first announcement sounded, alerting them that they were now in a dangerzone. In the confusion that followed, Gabriel snapped Karl's neck.

Post-Game Evaluation: Well... who didn't see that one coming? Nice sword or not, fate was conspiring against Karl from the day he was born.

Memorable Quotes: "Whathhack?"

Other/Trivia
Coming soon...

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Karl, in chronological order.

Pre-Game:
 * Lunch Broken

V3:
 * Dropping the Soap

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Karl Van Buren. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''